Work is Following Me Home

I work for the Environment Agency and, at the moment, the drought is a Very Big Deal at work. It's not an immediate part of my job but there's no doubting the importance of the issue this year.

As I was driving home this evening, IThe Report began and it was about drought. Although comedy and drama are the reasons I turn the radio on, documentaries don't usually make me turn off. But I found my finger reaching for the off button simply because I didn't think I'd want to hear about the drought in my free time as well as in work.

But within the first couple of minutes I'd learned some key facts that I hadn't heard during the drought coverage of the past few weeks:

• Running a hosepipe for an hour will use as much water as a family of four would use in a weekend
• Twenty million people are under water restrictions
• The environmentally friendly shower-length is four minutes

The message that hosepipe bans actually work to conserve water was loud and clear and that's something that can't be said too often.

The Report has a very educational tone. It felt a little like being back in school, watching an informative but rather dry programme on a subject I didn't really care about. There were a lot of facts on a lot of drought-related issues to take in. And, by the time it reached the section on leaks from the pipe network, my mind was wandering a little. Hosepipes; stand pipes; potatoes; low-flowing rivers; abstraction licence reform; abstraction reduction; moving water across the country; fish; wastage in the pipe networks; and an apology for poor customer service from a water company... it was all a bit too much for one half hour.

But, if you want to know more about the drought I'd recommend that you listen to The Report. You can also take a look at Agency's drought map (for which my friend Angharad was partly responsible).

Continuing the environmental theme was Nature's look at how wood can improve rivers. River habitats are equally far from my area of work but I found it a lot more interesting. The programme stuck to its subject and explained it clearly even though the initial premise - "let's put wood in rivers" - seems simple but a little crazy considering the amount of effort that goes into preventing flooding. It was fantastic to hear people talking so passionately about what they wanted to achieve, without ignoring issues like flood risk and interest groups with conflicting needs. 

I think the mention of the Water Framework Directive may have completed my EA terminology bingo card for the night but, by the end of the programme, I wanted nothing more than to be sitting beside a gently meandering river while watching fish dart between tree branches.